UK Politics: Fishing for a deal

[Spockydog]

The Good Law Project is coming for these crooked bastards.

[The Anti-Targ]

8 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Quote

 “Can you please remind me of the age of the Prophet Mohammad’s first wife? Thank you in anticipation!”

That’s the only one any news article I can find actually mentions? I tried going through Twitter but I don’t know of a good way of following a conversation, without including every Union Jack avatar twat along the way.

The answer is, Muhammad was basically the Arabic Emmanuel Macron in terms of his first wife's age. He also remained monogamous for their entire marriage. If she actually was thinking about Khadijah, then it would seem like she is protecting Muhammad's honour. But I suspect she's actually thinking of Aisha, his 3rd wife. And if you know the full context of that story, you will not be justified in trying to make it some kind of suggestion that Islam is a pedo-cult.

[DaveSumm]

Thanks. I wasn’t disagreeing, it just seems to be quite common with these things not to lead with the comment in question; the word ‘Islamaphobic’ encompasses a whole range of possible comments. I don’t see why we can’t evaluate it ourselves, to draw own conclusions (such as it’s a bad argument, ill-informed, irrelevant, as well as Islamaphobic). It was like the fifth google result before I found one with the comment (Guardian had “indefensible comments” ... were they? Could I decide for myself please? And the BBC just left it at ‘made comments about the age of one of Prophet Mohammed’s wives).

I get that there’s an argument to say don’t spread bad opinions around, but then it’s either newsworthy or it isn’t. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-unicef-ashamed-b354455.html

MP and noted ‘humanitarian’ Jacob Rees-Mogg says Unicef should be ‘ashamed’ at feeding children in parts of London. 

What a scumbag.

Does Bob Geldof have anything scheduled for next year? After we go full Brexit, we might be needing a bit of BandAid

 

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-unicef-ashamed-b354455.html

MP and noted ‘humanitarian’ Jacob Rees-Mogg says Unicef should be ‘ashamed’ at feeding children in parts of London. 

What a scumbag.

Does Bob Geldof have anything scheduled for next year? After we go full Brexit, we might be needing a bit of BandAid

 

"Queen Victoria didn't do it, so why should we?"

[Derfel Cadarn]

The UK’s R rate is above 1 again; the tier system’s proving ineffective. Northern Ireland is beginning a strict 6 week lockdown, the rest of the UK may have to follow.

And we’ve not even had thr xmas free-for-all yet! Plus the inevitable New Year parties

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55358968

[Spockydog]

55 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

The UK’s R rate is above 1 again; the tier system’s proving ineffective. Northern Ireland is beginning a strict 6 week lockdown, the rest of the UK may have to follow.

And we’ve not even had thr xmas free-for-all yet! Plus the inevitable New Year parties

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55358968

Their entire stragegy has been fatally undermined by the dunderheaded refusal to close schools. If shools are not a vector, then someone please explain how my 6-year-old niece got infected last week, along with seven other families from her school. 

[The Anti-Targ]

23 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Their entire stragegy has been fatally undermined by the dunderheaded refusal to close schools. If shools are not a vector, then someone please explain how my 6-year-old niece got infected last week, along with seven other families from her school. 

In some people's minds "children are less susceptible and shed less virus" = children can't spread the disease.

[Derfel Cadarn]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

In some people's minds "children are less susceptible and shed less virus" = children can't spread the disease.

My aunt believes this, or perhaps wants to, so she can continue to see her grandson.

Anyone who’s had a kid and recalls the surge in colds they get once their kid starts nursery/school knows this to be a fallacy.

[Heartofice]

Pretty sure there is a lot of good evidence that young children rarely contract and spread the virus, unless that has changed recently I’m less interested in Spockydogs anecdote

[The Anti-Targ]

I don't think there is evidence that it is rare for kids. The evidence is that they get it less and don't spread it as effectively. But there is a big difference between less and rare. There is also evidence that asymptomatic people spread it less too, but it still happens. Rare would suggest that only 1-5% of children who get an exposure that would be infectious for an adult become infected.

This study https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.03.20121145v2

Quote

[estimated] that children are about half as susceptible to infection as adults, and are somewhat less prone to infect others compared to adults.

That's not rare. Probably lines up better with Spockydog's anecdote than HoI's assertion. A whole population R0 value is about 2.2 if no control measures are used. Children as a sub-population might have a R0 of, say, 1.5 and that's "somewhat less prone" to infect people, but it would still mean they will infect at people, and can cycle the disease within their population at school.

[Heartofice]

Ok sure, rare is probably not the right word but it certainly seems that young children are less likely to catch and transmit the virus, which why I’m really less concerned about blaming it all on keeping schools open, especially if there is one thing we should really be trying to maintain its children’s education 

[BigFatCoward]

At the very least we should keep all kids off school for an extra week. And give them a chance to get more of the vulnerable vaccinated. I read the other day that at present we can do a maximum of 2 million a week, so really only 1 million people since you need 2 jabs? Is this the maximum capacity moving forward or will the numbers ramp up? I cant find anything either way. 

[polishgenius]

12 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Pretty sure there is a lot of good evidence that young children rarely contract and spread the virus, unless that has changed recently I’m less interested in Spockydogs anecdote

Here's an article sumarrising and linking to several studies on how kids are in fact both equally likely to get it and  most likely equally likely to spread it, and on statistics showing that schools reopening tied in with the R-rate rising in several places.

It's very likely that the initial belief about children not getting it was based on some very faulty data, to whit kids were not getting tested because theyh were asymptomatic, and when they were  tested it was because a parent was positive, which if caught from the child meant it was quite likely that by the time the child got a test, they'd fought it off and were negative. As noted in the article when Germany did antigen tests on kids rather than the 'do you have it now' tests, there were a lot of positives for that.

 

[Raja]

If you have widespread community transmission, you will not keep the virus out of school, and you will not prevent the virus being transmitted. Best way to protect schools is to suppress community transmission. Schools reflect community transmission.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

12 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Ok sure, rare is probably not the right word but it certainly seems that young children are less likely to catch and transmit the virus, which why I’m really less concerned about blaming it all on keeping schools open, especially if there is one thing we should really be trying to maintain its children’s education 

That is not actually a problem that requires schools to be open in the medium term. It just requires commitment to spend what is necessary to ensure children of all economic demographics have access to a decent device and internet. The vast majority of whom already have such access, (96% of UK households have internet access according to some stats I Googled) which means the cost of ensuring the small % of kids that don't have a device or access is not that huge, and probably offset by savings on the cost of having schools open.

Schools eventually have to get back, but they don't have to until it is safe, and children's educations would not suffer materially to the extent that it has long term negative consequences. My son still got first class honours this year and a PhD scholarship offer while the university was closed for about 6 months. Not a child, of course, but still in fairly demanding educational circumstances.

[Heartofice]

The issue there is that closing schools also predominantly affects poorer families, who either have to find childcare, or stay at home. It also seems that richer families are able to cope better, getting private tuition etc. On top of that online learning, especially for young children requires an adult to supervise, you can’t really just leave them in front of a laptop all day. You can’t really compare that to someone doing a masters.
 

Obviously it’s a trade off, children’s education vs lowering the spread. 

[DaveSumm]

Hesitant to bring this up as I’m not a parent, but why exactly do kids have a free pass for not wearing a mask? It’s extremely rare to see a kid under maybe ... 14? To be wearing a mask? I see them every time I go to the supermarket, and immediately think of how they’ve been at school all day with other kids not wearing them. I can already here cries “hah, you try getting them to wear one!” Well, yea I’m sure it’s annoying. But this is important. I mean, they manage clothes OK.

@The Anti-Targ I always assumed the problem was parents who rely on school as child care, and can’t work if their kids aren’t at school. That’s why the government ruled it out so emphatically, it’s the real economy killer.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, DaveSumm said:

 

@The Anti-Targ I always assumed the problem was parents who rely on school as child care, and can’t work if their kids aren’t at school. That’s why the government ruled it out so emphatically, it’s the real economy killer.

Also not a good reason to keep schools open. Alternatives should and can be figured out, but again, govts have to be willing to deficit spend to get through the crisis. They were in several countries that got a better handle on the virus than the UK and who's economies didn't tank as badly. The only real problem is govts with a penny-pinching attitude trying to manage COVID on the cheap.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Also not a good reason to keep schools open. Alternatives should and can be figured out, but again, govts have to be willing to deficit spend to get through the crisis. They were in several countries that got a better handle on the virus than the UK and who's economies didn't tank as badly. The only real problem is govts with a penny-pinching attitude trying to manage COVID on the cheap.

You don’t think the Uk has deficit spent??